How bad are things out there? Here's how bad. Atlantic Coast Conference officials said Tuesday that tickets are available to the general public for the men's basketball tournament at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. That's the first time the general public has had access to tickets since 1966.

They go on sale starting Monday for the March 12-15 tournament, which will be held at Atlanta's Georgia Dome.

The Associated Press ran the story and it was picked up in the Wednesday editions of Sports Business Daily.

While tournament seats are normally among the toughest in sports to land, ACC commissioner John Swofford attributed the availability to a "unique combination of playing this year's tournament in a dome during very trying economic times."

The Georgia Dome, normally the home of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons, is the largest venue used for the ACC tournament, seating more than 30,000 in its basketball configuration. Last year, the facility gained notoriety when a tornado struck during the quarterfinals of the Southeastern Conference tournament, forcing the remaining games to be shifted to nearby Alexander Memorial Coliseum on the Georgia Tech campus.

This will mark the second time the ACC tournament has been held at Georgia Dome, and it's scheduled to return in 2012 -- the only time in the next six years the event will leave its traditional home, the Greensboro Coliseum.

"Playing in the Georgia Dome provides a great stage for our conference teams and Atlanta has been a terrific partner," Swofford said in a statement. "Having already sold more tickets to this year's tournament than the capacity of any of our other venues, our schools felt it would be appropriate to offer the remaining tickets to college basketball fans in the Atlanta area."

All available seats are in the upper deck. The entire 11-game book must be purchased at a cost of $363 - an average of $33 per game.

The ACC did not immediately respond to a query on how many tickets were still available for the tournament.

Tickets are normally sold out in advance through the 12 member schools, but the economic downturn made it tougher to find buyers. This will be the first public sale of tickets since the 1966 tournament, the last held at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, N.C.

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